BookBud AI Rises From The Ashes

HOST: It's good to have you back, Bo. Last time we got into AgentOutreach.io, and I've been thinking about that line you had about publishing a profitable book, versus just any book. Now, I see your BookBud.ai has been completely rebuilt, and that line is right on the homepage. You didn't just update it, you tore it down and started over. What happened? GUEST: Well, it was time. Uh it's been about two years since we started Book Brush, and as you probably know, two years in the internet world is forever. So, we had to uh well, we didn't have to, but I thought it would be a good idea just to build it from scratch. Keep what was working well and completely redo uh what I guess everything was working okay, but it wasn't fantastic. And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to build a fantastic product. So, I wanted to add a whole bunch of features that I always had on the list of uh the wish list items, and I just wanted to make it a incredibly smooth process. HOST: You mention incredibly smooth. The site talks about BookBud being a publishing workflow, not just a text box. Can you walk me through what a first-time user does, step by step, from logging in to having something they could upload to Amazon? GUEST: Sure, and it is a workflow. It's from start to finish. It's made so somebody could go in there with nothing, not even an idea for what they want to do. And they could log in, they could set up an account, they could log in. Uh that takes seconds. And then once they're in, they could use AI to generate an idea for them. They could pick a category if they want. Let's say uh they they like animals. They like dogs. They could click that category and a a book at random will be generated about dogs. Um or they could just pick any category. Once they get the category and the idea for the book, uh Book Bolt does the rest. It fills in all the information, it creates the chapters. After it creates the chapters, it'll write all of the chapters. So, the book is done and then you go to the cover and it'll do an amazing cover. A really good looking cover. You have a lot of control over that as well. Once you have the book done, you could go to the export and you could export the PDF, the ePub files, and you could be done there if you want and take the the book and do what you want with it. But we go beyond that. With this new version, I completely integrated our other companies where you could turn that into a print book, you could turn it into an audio book, and you could do full distribution as well. Full distribution of the e-book, and it doesn't cost you any more. We take care of all of that. So, the the the print book, after you do the print book, you could do the distribution, you could do the audio book and then the audio book distribution, and then the e-book distribution. And again, if you're just doing distribution for the e-book, that's included in the price. HOST: That sounds like a much more comprehensive pipeline, but, you know, critics argue that this kind of tool is driving a massive influx of low-quality books, burying other authors in Amazon's search results. Does BookBud have any safeguards built in, or do you see that as purely an Amazon problem? GUEST: Well, there's a few issues there. One, you say a massive influx of low-quality books. And then the other issue is burying other authors in Amazon search results. Well, let me address the the first one, the first part first, and that's the low-quality books. I could tell you as somebody who's been in the business and working with thousands of authors over the last 15-16 years, that these books are far above the quality of the typical author-written book. Far above, on average. Um that doesn't mean that every single book is better than every single author's book that it has ever written a book by hand. Um and myself included. I've written over a dozen books, and I think especially my books are, of course, better than all the AI books, but that's me, and that's my bias. But for the most part, these books are generated beautifully, and they're they're edited, and they're checked, and their grammar is perfect, and it's really good content. So, I'm okay with that part. Now, in terms of burying other authors, yeah, that's what happens. Um our authors who use our book, our book bud, and create books, they're going to get in the search results, and they are going to start burying other authors who've written books. Um it's the nature of competition. So, is it is it my problem? No. Is it Amazon's problem? Uh not really. Amazon's selling books either way. It's actually the the user's problem, the the author's problem, the publisher's problem. They need to do something to make the book stand out even more, and that's where we come in with book marketing. Uh everything we do on the selfpublishing.pro front. HOST: So you're seeing that as simply a competitive landscape change. Your Pro plan even allows for producing up to 50 books a month. Who is actually using that tier—is that a solo author or someone running a type of publishing business we might not have thought of? GUEST: Uh it's the ladder actually. It's not individual authors. They're not usually the ones doing it. It's usually people who see this as a business opportunity and are taking advantage of it and starting like their own publishing company basically. Uh that's what we're seeing a lot of. That kind of customer. HOST: That makes sense as far as who really targets that kind of volume. Now, you've got BookBud for writing, BookCovers.pro for covers, AuthorVoices for audio, and AgentOutreach for promotion. From the outside it looks like the pieces of one platform spread across separate sites. Is that intentional, or is there a point where these connect into a single workflow? GUEST: It's definitely intentional. We have over 40 close approaching 50 sites now that all work together about 90 maybe 80% of them are all publishing related and the other 20% are um marketing just for general like website marketing, um business marketing, and then we have some other like one-offs that are just really good ideas that we decided to throw in there as well. Uh but yes, they're all integrated as well when it comes to the publishing part. We integrate everything at selfpublishing.pro. HOST: So you've got integration built into that main service. I also notice you have sample EPUBs right on the homepage, which is a bolder move than most AI writing tools make. What were you willing to show, and what does a BookBud output actually need to look like before you'd call it publish-ready? GUEST: Well, we're proud of the work that it does. And those two books that we have as samples, they're both my books. One was a non-fiction book and one was a fiction book that I wrote. And when I say I wrote, I wrote it with BookBud using AI. AI did most of the writing, but it was my idea. And and with fiction books, it's a different process. You don't just press a button and it's done. With fiction books, it's more of a a back and forth process with you and AI chapter by chapter. So you guide the whole story and and decide where it goes. It's kind of like a make your own adventure in a way, so it's really neat that way. Uh but anyway, I put those books on there because the formatting is beautiful, the covers are beautiful, and it's just a really good example of what BookBud can do. HOST: So you've got both samples there because you're confident in the output. If someone listening right now is a self-published author who's been burned before by a tool that promised to do too much, what's the one thing about the rebuilt BookBud that you'd want them to know that they wouldn't learn just from reading the website? GUEST: Well, the investment is is and the risk is like next to nothing. You can You can sign up for a free account and you can start with the first couple chapters for free without putting in a credit card or anything. And you'll get You'll see the output. You'll see the kind of work it does. And then if you want to finish it, then you can subscribe. And even if you just want to subscribe for 1 month and build a handful of books, you could do that and then cancel. So, it It's really low risk. Um and and because people like it, and it's a really good product. HOST: So you're really banking on the quality of the initial output to convert people into paying subscribers. Before we go—for listeners who want to follow up on what we covered, where can they find you and the work you're doing? GUEST: You can find the work at bookbud.ai. That's the work we've been discussing in this episode. And more broadly, our whole portfolio of companies is under archyboy.com. HOST: Well, Bo, thanks for breaking down how BookBud was rebuilt to solve that profitability puzzle for authors. And thank you, listener, for being with us. Let's get you back on soon, Bo, because I want to talk about where all of this is heading when these pieces are truly connected. Until next time — that's a wrap.